What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

[Firewind]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

That's almost what I'm asking you. More like, "Why is so much suffering intrinsic to the natural world?" I might recognize that in choosing to eat meat I am inflicting suffering on an animal and choose to do so anyway, and you could argue that suffering was brought about by a misuse of my free will, but the lion, even if it was cognizant of that, doesn't have the option of preparing tofu and lentils. It must inflict suffering on a regular basis or visit suffering upon itself. It doesn't seem to be the kind of system a loving God who would ostensibly abhor suffering would create. You can always invoke the inscrutability of the mind of God and be rhetorically unassailable as far as I'm concerned, but I was hoping you or someone else had some perspective that was more intellectually satisfying.

That proves it, God is really a troll like Celestia

[Taskmage]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)



It's just not a thread without ponies, is it?

[Armando]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

I've been busy as fuck today which is why I haven't been responding. I maintain my position that a human can't really know if what they're feeling is God or not, but many of you have convinced me that thinking you felt God someplace or some time isn't an unreasonable position.

That's almost what I'm asking you. More like, "Why is so much suffering intrinsic to the natural world?" I might recognize that in choosing to eat meat I am inflicting suffering on an animal and choose to do so anyway, and you could argue that suffering was brought about by a misuse of my free will, but the lion, even if it was cognizant of that, doesn't have the option of preparing tofu and lentils. It must inflict suffering on a regular basis or visit suffering upon itself. It doesn't seem to be the kind of system a loving God who would ostensibly abhor suffering would create. You can always invoke the inscrutability of the mind of God and be rhetorically unassailable as far as I'm concerned, but I was hoping you or someone else had some perspective that was more intellectually satisfying.

Let me take a stab at it:
1) Without natural deaths, the world would quickly overpopulate. The only solution that problem is to somehow limit the ability of living beings to procreate, or to be immaterial beings that don't require food, water, air, shelter, sleep, and medicine.
2) Being immaterial beings would take the meaning out of life. E.g. Sharing loses meaning when there's nothing that anyone needs. Happiness loses meaning when there's never any hardship. Basically, there's little to learn or experience if we were "just souls." If you agree with that then we've established that both death and material needs are necessary for life to have meaning.
3) Moving on to the lion and the gazelle...that's the natural consquence of a universe that evolves. In a universe with death, the only way the problem of the lion and the gazelle wouldn't exist is if, when life began, all life-forms were perfectly suited for the environment, the quantity of lifeforms was perfectly balanced for the amount of resources available, and the environment didn't change significantly over time. Basically if the universe was static. But that's not how the universe was made. Lifeforms took on as many shapes as they could in an attempt to further their chances of survival. Some lifeforms were killed off, and a balance was struck between those that remained. The lion and the gazelle are part of that balance.

I don't know if that makes sense to you. That's the best I could come up with to answer such a loaded question. I know I make some assumptions here and there but I didn't want to turn this into a wall of text.

[Taskmage]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

I think it was well put, but it doesn't really get at what I was trying to address. Let me maybe reframe my question in a way that's more direct and less loaded. To me loving someone or something incorporates a desire to minimize the suffering of your loved one. Assuming God loves all his creations and that He has the ability to create a heavenly world where there is only bliss and no suffering, why not just create everything that way?

That seems more answerable and more like it would produce interesting answers.

[DakAttack]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

I think it was well put, but it doesn't really get at what I was trying to address. Let me maybe reframe my question in a way that's more direct and less loaded. To me loving someone or something incorporates a desire to minimize the suffering of your loved one. Assuming God loves all his creations and that He has the ability to create a heavenly world where there is only bliss and no suffering, why not just create everything that way?

That seems more answerable and more like it would produce interesting answers.

Genesis details the Garden of Eden, which sounds like the place of bliss you're referring to. Even if it does exist, we would be too busy dissecting and understanding it to recognize it. I suppose that's the point.

[Armando]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

Assuming God loves all his creations and that He has the ability to create a heavenly world where there is only bliss and no suffering, why not just create everything that way?

That's not all that different from being immaterial beings no real needs, since the only way to have no suffering is to either have no needs or have your needs always be met. If you wanted to achieve that with mortal people, there's only two ways:
1) Have God make us without free will and program us all to get along
2) Give us free will and wait for thousands of years (hopefully. We could always wipe each other out before achieving utopia.)

Assuming there's a God, creating us without free will would be boring for him. (I assume if he made us it's because being The Only Thing In Existence gets old after a while.) We'd be little more than action figures, since we'd ultimately do only what he/she/it wills us to do.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

That's almost what I'm asking you. More like, "Why is so much suffering intrinsic to the natural world?" I might recognize that in choosing to eat meat I am inflicting suffering on an animal and choose to do so anyway, and you could argue that suffering was brought about by a misuse of my free will, but the lion, even if it was cognizant of that, doesn't have the option of preparing tofu and lentils. It must inflict suffering on a regular basis or visit suffering upon itself. It doesn't seem to be the kind of system a loving God who would ostensibly abhor suffering would create. You can always invoke the inscrutability of the mind of God and be rhetorically unassailable as far as I'm concerned, but I was hoping you or someone else had some perspective that was more intellectually satisfying.

Much of the counterpoint to religion often seems to be "If God exists, why does he allow [X thing I wouldn't allow] to happen?"

If belief in a god requires said deity to assume your viewpoint on everything, then we have an incredibly flimsy and anemic deity on our hands. Who's gong to worship a cosmic yes man?

Why is there suffering in the world? Well. God said don't touch the hot stove and then some snake told the little girl to touch it and dared the boy to do it, too. Then God showed up and wondered why they had bandages on covering the burns. God told them "This is why we can't have nice things, take your free will and apply it elsewhere" and told them to stay out of the kitchen forever.

Then when they got older there were all these kids who didn't listen to them about how God wouldn't let them back in the kitchen and they had to learn all this stuff for themselves, all because they thought they knew better.

And those kids thought they knew better, too. Grandma and Grandpa told them all not to build a tower because it will never reach heaven. But when they came home the next day all the furniture and stuff was stacked up and nailed together and went pretty high, They never got it done because God didn't care for that kind of arrogance and suddenly Claude was speaking French and Kim was scrawling Chinese on the driveway in chalk.

Those kids grew up, formed nations and just couldn't get along. God said for them to stop or he would turn this car around. But they wouldn't stop and he just got tired of saying it, so he told Noah to get his family, build a big-ass boat and load up the thing with a zoo of critters. He told Noah,"Leave the fish, they'll be fine where the are and to bring a fishing rod because you can't eat the animals on the boat, Yeah, sorry, not steak or poultry on this cruise, just seafood for 40 days and 40 nights."

The flood subsided and new generations were born and established. New cultures came along, built pyramids and shit. Some guys in Egypt decided that Jews made nice slaves and people to kill and God didn't like that, so he told this guy Moses to free them, gave him all these neat tricks to scare the Pharoah into letting the Jews go.

And then when he got them out, they came to an ocean, the Pharoah apparently changed his mind and chased them. In a miracle that should have prevented anyone from second-guessing God, the seas parted so the Jews could safely cross and when they got through, the sea returned to normal and swept away those guys wearing mascara.

Then there was some time where the set up camp, God issued some sensible rules that they should follow if they want to make it to new home in a timely fashion, things like "don't bang the neighbor's wife, don't kill each others and don't make a golden cow to worship as I don't look like that" and wouldn't you know it?

When Moses got down there with those rules, wives were being coveted, people were stabbing each other and people were worshipping some golden cow they made. He showed them the rules and asked them why the were doing these things.

They were like, "Duh. Winning."

Moses was like "Fuck it," and threw down the roles and went and sobbed somewhere.

But they still wanted Moses to take him to their new home, at some point even Moses considered God a backseat driver and they all got lost. Moses never got to the new house, though those that actually listened to the Tom Tom God gave them did.

And when they got there, they had kids and those kids thought they knew better. They touched that hot stovetop, too.

And that's my abridged, slightly modernized version of the Torah.

So people always think the know better and assume God thinks like they do. I think that's why there's suffering in the world. Just look at any war ever, people always think their deity is on their side somehow. That's just so convenient.

If I'm to assume God is an intelligent, sentient being, He's going to have to disagree with me at some point. I still have the option of just doing whatever I want, there's no stopping volition.

And in some cases the burns are just going to happen anyway, I don't get to Pass Go and collect $200 all the time because of faith. Shit happens. The world's done its best to take me out and ruin me. I can pretend to ignore that fact or use it to better myself or I can be an arrogant SOB and expect God to do things my way all the time and hate him if he doesn't.

If I believe God is a loving being, why would He shelter me? Free will means I have a choice and I do. I have to go out in that world where shit's just going to happen. If he just conforms to my concept of God should be, he's not God. If I'm constantly protected for doing what he says, I don't have free will. And if I don't know free will, there isn't a hope in hell I'll know what love or compassion are.

How can love or compassion even exist if there is no suffering?

------------

This got a bit long, but as animals go. I don't think they know suffering, that's just a human concept thrust upon them. They don't live in fear of death because they have no concept of the fear of death. They do have intelligence and emotion, but where you see suffering they just see an obstacle of hindrance to survival or the end of life. Those that become domesticated understand you will aid them in survival and for that they grant you loyalty and affection until that end.

They don't know about gods, if you have a pet, you practically are a god to them and they hope they can be more like you. They gain their sense of right and wrong from your training of them. In that sense, they are only as good or bad as you are, but they don't know those things either

Except when you're around. They only know shitting the carpet is bad if you see it and its the one thing you'd prefer they didn't do.

And personally, I don't think there's a hell for animals. They don't know about God, so why would they go to hell? Again, they're only "bad" if humans make them that way. They don't know what "bad" is save for what humans tell them.

If domesticated, they hope you're always on their side. If not domesticated, they hope you don't meddle too much in their habitat and you do the best you can to watch out for the deer at night, not poke bee hives or attract the attention of or provoke bears, lions or sharks.

God might have made us smarter than bears, but he didn't make us strong enough regarding them to prove Darwin wrong when it comes to a one-on-one encounter. Even shotguns might not be enough, despite what video games and Youtube teach us about their effectiveness.

OK, I'm done

[Armando]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

Because I missed this:

That proves it, God is really a troll like Celestia

You mean this guy wasn't enough evidence for you?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

Also, if you wonder why I swear so much when talking about religion and stuff, its because I dislike Christians that worry more about the fact that I said "shit" and what other people do rather than growing in their own faith.

I should really only worry what other people do if it happens to endanger myself and others. So when someone says kill the Jews because they don't believe in Allah - which does seem be a thing going on in this "Arab Spring" people talk about, that and a Nazi party there just made itself official - I think that's sort of a problem we need to speak up about, what with Israel being our ally and all. That and much of the Arab media brainwashes their kids to hate Jews and the West through childrens programming. Taking notes from the Third Reich on propaganda, apparently.

I can't exactly blame the prime minister of Israel for passively telling our president his idea of giving the Palestinians a slice of Jerusalem is stupid. Oh yes, let's give some land to the people that hate Jews and want to kill them and will never stop until they do kill them all. It takes balls to live in Israel as it is.

And if you need to hear it from someone not religious or Glenn Beck, then here you go. He does call a religious reason "stupid" but given he's actually defending who he's applying that to, I think we can let it slide:

I actually like this guy quite a bit. Well, except when he calls religion "stupid," but that's just some Atheists for you. When he starts picking apart religions internally and calling them stupid because he doesn't like any of them THEN I don't like him so much, but he's practical in most respects where he talks about how they tie into problematic world events.

As I stated in the other thread, I don't have a problem with Muslims that want to be a part of a civil society, worship and live how they like without encroaching on how others live. More power to them if they want to get along and keep Sharia practiced in the home away from the rest of society.

That said, the picture people in the west have of the Middle East is a very naive picture. We've given Nobel Peace Prizes to Western hating anti-Semites before, which is why that guy in the video panned it as a joke. There is a very real culture of hate over there innocents are swept into eerily similar to what led to the Holocaust and even though we're at war with it its like mentally were pre-9/11 or Pearl Harbor. Job's done/bring 'em home kinda bullshit. We're not done, its not over. Its been going on for thousands of years over there and it trying to come here and hope you'll bend over for it so you can feel tolerant.

There's Islam and there's Radical Islam, the former isn't perfect as a religion (as religions go, none are), but its the latter that's kind of a big problem. It doesn't play nice with others and doesn't want peace. And we have Muslims that speak out against it. They recognized that culture of hate, shed that part of their upbringing and largely ignored by our media because of fear of being called racist. Our leaders seem to fear it, too, but then, that's hardly surprising as they're more worried about getting re-elected by any sector of their prospective voters than what their constituents actually think.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

By the way, if I may meekly express further appreciation to Armando and BBQ for expressing my position in a more "intellectually satisfying" manner while I was asleep . . . seriously, you guys rock. I don't think I could've said it any better myself, to be perfectly honest.

[Aksannyi]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

Off topic here, but thank you TM or whoever removed Dak's bullshit posts from this thread.

[Malacite]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

It'd be like leaving the world without ever feeling heartbreak. If you missed out on something that poignant and powerful, did you live a full life?

Speaking from personal experience, that's one I could have gladly done without tyvm.

[Ketaru]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

So people always think the know better and assume God thinks like they do. I think that's why there's suffering in the world. Just look at any war ever, people always think their deity is on their side somehow. That's just so convenient.

If I'm to assume God is an intelligent, sentient being, He's going to have to disagree with me at some point. I still have the option of just doing whatever I want, there's no stopping volition.

If God is an intelligent, sentient being that created the entire universe and everything you know, you may disagree with him, at which point you should no longer disagree because you will always be wrong. It's that kind of logic that makes it difficult to really argue in favor of not believing in God. It is for that it isn't really possible to debate in favor of or against the existence of God.

I don't believe in an afterlife. I think, one day if I were to die, I would cease to exist in any form. For now, I would say that thought does not scare me, though I can't say what would happen if I were actually in danger of dying. I've heard the argument that I should believe "just in case" cause, you know, eternity in the lake of fire is probably kind of a drag. If I'm right, I certainly won't be around to think "What a waste of my time religion was." But religion isn't life insurance and saying prayers isn't paying your premium.

Maybe I have experienced a miracle. Maybe that miracle is the miracle of life and, for that, I should be a believer as I believe only somebody who has felt what they perceive to be a spiritual experience can truly believe in a higher power. I don't think any human being who intentionally harms another human being (except to protect themselves or loved ones) would truly believe that life is a miracle. Yet people do it all the time. And, in Radical Islam's case, in the name of religion no less. So if I don't know how to describe what an act of God feels like, who is the authority to turn to that can tell me? Everybody seems to think they have the right answer.

[Malacite]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

I for one, hope to live long enough for medical science to at least get to the point where we can actually extend lives. We're getting very close to it, and some are arguing that we may even figure out how to reverse aging and prolong our lives (if not outright become immortal [but not invincible, big difference]) in the next 20~40 years at the rate that we're making advancements.

[Raydeus]

Re: What do you believe? (RELIGION THREAD. **NO BASHING**)

I'll settle for having a functional body with not major diseases for the next 30-40 years. Then I'll probably be either young again due to advances in medicine or begging to die already anyway. So either way works for me.